As far as I can tell, the jury is still out on this one. The photozone review is actually very positive, except for the QC complaints, but then that isn't that unusual for a newer product. I already went the 17-40 route myself, but feel some regret...

Call me AlGearFlickrYou don’t have to have a great lens to take great pictures—but it sure helps. –Ben Long

Mookalafalas wrote in post #12406515I already went the 17-40 route myself, but feel some regret...

You should. This lens (well, my copy at least) is effing PHENOMENAL. Put it to the test yesterday at it's first wedding. It blows my other lenses out of the water for sharpness and saturation wide open. A little hazy around contrasting edges, but no chromatic aberration whatsoever. Unfortunately, photobucket does not do it's true colors justice.

Looks like a second batch came in. Most stores didn't have them in stock till a few days ago and it looks like everyone has it for sale now. Maybe the second batch may have better QC, but seeing from the lack of talk/buzz about this lens, I suspect demand is not that high.

I like the lens but for me, it's a bit too much at $850. I'd personally would go for it at $700 but I may have to wait for the price to drop to that level if it does.

I finally got to use my 16-28 a LOT today, and I'm VERY happy with the results. I'll post some examples once I get the set processed. Since there was a lot of questions about flaring, I did a couple of shots upward with the sun in the frame to post SOOC.

I will say, while the lens will flare from time to time, it's fairly unobtrusive and only really looks iffy when the lens is backed all the way off to 16mm. The first shot is at 21mm, shot into a midday sun, and I'm quite happy with the flaring:

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At 16mm, however, it builds up strongly in the opposite corner and doesn't look as good. It's cloneable in this example so I'm not that upset, especially since I was deliberately trying to make the lens flare:

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Overall, I couldn't be happier with this lens. It did wonderful for me today and I have no regrets about my purchase.

I just got the tokina from B&H this week - I have a used (From KEH) 16-35mm II that I have not been thrilled with - could be my copy - I don't know. So, I setup the tripod and took back to back shots with both lenses - cropped to 90%, 16mm, ISO 100, f2.8 and then f4.0 for both. I used manual focus and focused on the infinity symbol of the subject. the canon is first @2.8 then 4.0 followed by the tokina.

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